


The Lay of Artemis

by EldritchSandwich



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Ancient Greece, F/F, Flirting, Sexy Sandwich, Skinny Dipping, Teasing, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 11:26:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18445607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchSandwich/pseuds/EldritchSandwich
Summary: Lara and Sam explore a tiny Greek island and stumble across a moment of rare beauty.





	The Lay of Artemis

"You know, if someone had told me I was going to end up all alone on a little Greek island with my gorgeous, buff girlfriend, sore and covered in sweat...this isn't quite what I would have pictured."

As Sam plopped down on a rock and mopped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her equally sweaty arm, Lara turned from peering over the next jagged shelf to shoot her a sheepish glance. "I'm sorry, Sam. I guess I wasn't thinking—"

"Oh hey, sweetie, no!" Sam leaned forward to take Lara's hand between hers. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm having fun, really, just..." She looked around at the rocky slope, the few scraggly trees and shrubs clinging to the rocks doing nothing to shield them from either the blistering sun above or the churning Mediterranean below. Sam shook her head. "This place is just so you."

Lara shot her a wry smile. "Oh, well, thank you. I think. Now then, where was I...ah yes." Sam's eyes went wide as Lara reached down, quickly grabbing the hem of her tank top and pulling it free. It had barely come to rest on her discarded backpack before her sports bra followed it, leaving her firm, generous breasts exposed to the sun...and to Sam, whose gaze Lara returned with a raised eyebrow. "Would you like to do something with all that sweat?"

Sam's suddenly very dry mouth worked impotently as Lara kicked off her boots and socks; she only regained use of her words when the revelation of Lara's snug black panties made her swallow. "Wh...right here?"

"Well of course," Lara purred, holding Sam's eyes as she slowly tugged down her underwear to reveal the all-too-familiar triangle of brown curls and the tempting pink skin beneath it. "This is why we're here, after all..."

As Lara kicked aside her last article of clothing, Sam stood up. Before she could so much as reach for her, Lara shot her a shit-eating grin, hopped backwards, and promptly disappeared.

"Lara!" Sam scrambled forward across the rocks, heart in her throat...by the time her brain registered the sound of the splash, she was already on the lip of the flooded shaft carved down into the rock where a grinning Lara was treading water.

"Well, are you just going to stand there gawking, or are you going to join me? The water's lovely..."

Sam shook her head even as she quickly stripped off her boots. "You are such" and her shirt, "a fucking asshole." And her shorts. "I can't believe" and her bra, "that I'm madly" and her panties, "in love with you."

Lara's hungry eyes unashamedly took in Sam's naked body before meeting her glare. "Oh really? Why don't you come down here and say that to my face?"

With a petulant raspberry that swiftly turned into a shriek of laughter, Sam dove forward into the pool. The water line was about a foot below the edge of the shaft, and the water itself was cool and soothing. Sam let her body relax with a groan, only to groan again when Lara's arms settled on her shoulders and Lara's lips pressed into her neck. "Okay, if you insist." Sam's hand slid up to Lara's cheek, gently tugging her head back so their eyes could meet. "I'm madly in love with you."

Lara smiled. "Good. Because I'm madly in love with you too." She let Sam pull her in for a kiss—long, slow, and luxuriant—and when they parted Sam shook her head.

"Okay, spill. What is this place?"

Lara's arms released her, and Sam watched with interest as she stretched up over the ledge—making sure to appreciate Lara's flexing back muscles and perfectly-sculpted ass as she did—before dropping back down holding the waterproof camera from her backpack. "If I'm right, this is the entrance to a shrine dedicated to Artemis. Possibly one of the oldest to exist. Stories place it here as early as 1300 BC, long before the Greek Dark Ages and the solidification of the Hellenistic pantheon. If we...what?"

Sam shook her head as her laugh faded. "You're such a nerd." She shrieked as Lara splashed her, then laughed again as she flailingly returned the favor. Chuckling and shaking her head, Lara retreated to the far side of the pool.

"Okay, I'm just going to go under and see if I can find the entrance. I won't be long. Just...stay here and relax."

Sam sighed contentedly as she leaned back against the cool stone. "If you insist..." Sam's eyes drifted shut, only to snap open when she felt a gentle peck on her lips. Lara smiled, then sucked in a breath and dove beneath the surface.

It was almost thirty seconds before Sam started worrying. She knew Lara was probably one of the best swimmers she'd ever met—hell, Lara was probably one of the best everything she'd ever met—but...what if? What if she underestimated the amount of time she'd need to get back to the surface? What if the light on the camera went out—Sam peered down into the dark water, but she couldn't see it. What if Lara was pinned, what if she got stuck trying to squeeze through one of those narrow gaps she was always so sure she could fit through, what if—

Lara broke the surface, gulping down a breath and shaking the water from her hair. "Sam! You've got to see this...are you all right?"

Sam shook her head. "Yeah, I'm fine. What is it?"

Lara grinned like she'd just found a puppy rather than a flooded ruin. "Just hold your breath and follow me. We're going straight down, then through an opening on the far side of the wall. It's not far."

Sam rolled her eyes, but Lara's excitement was, as always, infectious. "Okay, lead the way o great adventurer..."

Lara chuckled and leaned in for another kiss. When she pulled back she took a deep breath, Sam following suit and diving beneath the surface. The light from the camera made it easy to follow Lara as she kicked downward; by the time the light reached the bottom of the shaft, the passageway carved from it was clearly visible. Sam's eyes strayed up as she followed Lara through; it was a simple arched corridor, tall enough that they could have just walked through if not for the water. After about fifteen feet it opened into a room not much bigger than the shaft; Lara kicked up, and Sam followed suit only to find the water sheeting away, the whole top two feet of the room above the water line.

Sam gulped in air and blinked the sting of brackish water from her eyes, only for the stars floating in her vision to actually grow more intense. When her eyes reached the center of the ceiling, she gasped; mounted above them was some kind of long, faceted crystal that caught the light from Lara's camera and refracted it into a thousand glittering, dancing shapes splashed across the ancient walls and the surface of the water. Sam let out a shuddering breath as Lara swam closer, causing the lights to shift and shimmer all around them.

"Holy shit! Lara, it's...it's beautiful!" Lara grinned, and Sam splashed closer to the crystal, reaching up to brush her fingers across the smooth surface. "Is it glass? Or...Jesus, please tell me it's not a giant diamond..."

Lara chuckled. "No, it's quartz I think. I wonder if they used it to amplify candlelight, or if they had some sort of mirror system to let in light from the surface."

"It's gorgeous. But...it's built like a normal room. How did they keep it from flooding?"

"Did you see the grooves above the shaft entrance when we came in?" Sam shook her head. "My guess is there used to be a cover stone, something to keep the water out, and maybe to disguise the entrance as well. Speaking of which, have you noticed the other strange thing?"

"What other strange thing?" Sam asked, and Lara smirked.

"Did you spend most of your time swimming down, or up?" Sam blinked, then her eyes went wide as Lara grinned. "By my guess we're still at least two meters below the water level in the shaft. This whole room should be flooded, but the water just...stops. It's like it doesn't want to go past the bottom of the carvings."

Sam followed Lara's eyes, for the first time paying attention to the stone panels that ringed the room, figures and backgrounds carved in relief above a knotted border that, indeed, the water stopped dead as soon as it reached. Lara passed her the camera and she began to swim a tight circle around the room, making sure to capture the details of each carving. "Do you know what they are?"

"I have a theory."

"Of course you do."

Lara shot her a tart smirk before turning back to one of the figures. "You see this man rising out of the river next to the group of women? I'd be willing to bet anything that's Alpheus, the river god. In some stories he was in love with Artemis and tried to trap her; in others he tried to force himself on one of her nymphs, and Artemis saved her by turning her into a wellspring."

"Well, that explains why the water stops there. If these carvings are all about this Alpheus being a jerk to her, I bet Artemis wouldn't want to let him try to cover it up," Sam joked. Of course when Lara turned back to face her, eyebrows raised, Sam realized that with everything they'd seen, maybe it wasn't really that ridiculous an idea after all. Sam cleared her throat. "So we're the first people down here in...what, three thousand years?"

"Something like that," Lara said with a smile as she swam closer. "So, what do you think? Glad you came along?"

Sam smiled at her girlfriend's teasing smirk. "Always."

"Good," Lara said as she settled her arms around Sam's shoulders. "Because I am very glad you came along..."

Sam sighed as Lara pushed in for a kiss, then pulled back in surprise as Lara's hands slid up from underwater to cup her breasts. "Mm, wait, here? Are you sure it's a good idea? I mean, wasn't Artemis the goddess of virginity?"

"In earlier incarnations she was also a mother goddess," Lara explained as her skilled fingertips flicked teasingly over Sam's stiff, responsive nipples. "Besides, at the time, 'virginity' just meant that a woman wouldn't devote herself to a man." One of Lara's hands slid down, and Sam gasped as she felt a finger part her lips. "Either way," Lara murmured against her mouth, "I think Artemis would approve, don't you?"

"I don't know why you always get so horny around ancient ruins," Sam said with a shake of her head as she leaned forward into a kiss, "but I kind of fucking love it..."

Lara's tongue slipped into her mouth just as Lara's finger wriggled between her other lips. When Lara pulled back, she was grinning. "Prove it."

Sam surged forward, claiming Lara's mouth with a powerful, open-mouthed kiss as her hands slid down to squeeze Lara's firm, muscular butt. The grip pulled their hips together, trapping Lara's hand between them, and Lara moaned around Sam's tongue as her own knuckles ground against her clit. Lara slipped another finger inside Sam and began to thrust, their hips rocking together and breasts kissing and rubbing as their tongues sparred back and forth between the familiar battlegrounds of their mouths.

Sam moaned low and long as Lara's pace increased. As slow and strange as the buildup to admitting how they felt about each other had been Lara was so often such a tender, almost bashful lover, but sometimes...sometimes, for whatever reason, all that gentle restraint fell away and Sam got a taste of the other Lara: the one who'd survived Yamatai and Kitezh and Paititi, who was willing to push herself until she was little more than a feral animal. And that was something she'd quickly realized once they were finally together, even if she'd only recently been able to put it into words: the gentle Lara, the one who'd carried her down the mountain on Yamatai and stroked her hair and held her as they put it behind them...that Lara made love; but the other Lara, the one who'd charged up that mountain to save her in the first place and was willing to unflinchingly mow down all the horrors that stood between them to do it...that Lara _fucked_.

Sam yelped as her head knocked against the wall, propelled by the force of Lara taking command of the kiss. Lara's fingers were hooked inside her, pumping and curling, rubbing with pinpoint accuracy against her weak spot; Sam whimpered against Lara's lips, then harder when those lips trailed down along her jaw, past the sensitive underside of her ear, to suck hard at her pulse point. Sam's hips bucked and Lara's met them, just driving her fingers deeper and faster, and Sam's gasping, breathy moans echoed above the splashing water. "Oh fuck, Lara, yes, right there...fuck, I'm so close..."

When Lara's teeth sank into her neck, Sam exploded. Her squeal of pleasure filled the cavern, hips bucking like mad as her muscles clamped down on Lara's thrusting fingers and lightning surged through her. Her nails dug into Lara's back, every part of her wrapped around Lara's burning body heat in the cool water. As her orgasm subsided and her breathing calmed, Lara's teeth against her neck turned to soft, feather-light kisses, Lara's nose nuzzling her skin and Lara's hot breath making her shiver. "Was that all right?" Lara murmured against her skin, and Sam laughed.

"Fuck, Lara. We need to end up in underwater ruins more often..." Lara chuckled against her cheek, and Sam's shaking fingers angled her up for another kiss. "Lara?"

"Mm?"

"How fast can we get back to the hotel?"

"If we're willing to waive the deposit for the boat...maybe an hour? Why?"

Sam grinned hungrily. "Because I've got another flooded shrine to Artemis I want you to explore..."

Lara burst out laughing. "Oh God, Sam! I can't tell whether that's the worst thing I've ever heard or the sexiest!"

Sam just shrugged coyly. "Well if you're not interested..."

Lara cut her off with a kiss. "Oh, I'm interested," she growled.

Sam smirked and reached for her hand under the water. "Then what are we waiting for?"

As she and Lara submerged and headed back toward the surface, leaving the shrine behind, Sam couldn't help thinking that maybe Lara was right: wherever and whatever she really was, hopefully Artemis was enjoying the show.


End file.
